Daily Recap — October 11

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

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SIMPSON NOT TALKING

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Lawyers for Glenn Simpson, co-founder of smear firm that spawned the pee-pee dossier, Fusion GPS, told the head of the House Judiciary Committee today that he will “invoke his constitutional rights not to testify,” defying a GOP-issued subpoena seeking to compel him to give a closed-door deposition.

The lawyers told committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) in an e-letter that Simpson will not participate in the committee’s inquiry because it “is not designed to discover the truth.”

You know, unlike their dossier, which was purely a fact-finding mission.

“Consistent with the September 27, 2018 letter we sent to you, Mr. Simpson, whose testimony is a matter of public record, will not be participating in a confidential deposition before this Committee,” lawyers for Simpson wrote.. “He will instead invoke his constitutional rights not to testify under the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution.”

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The Simpson legal team is employing a predictable strategy as the heat continues to rise — one that is also being employed by former FBI Deputy Director Deep State McCabe. And that’s to paint the current House probe and every other investigation into the corrupt relationship between the bureau and Fusion GPS as a partisan witch hunt meant to distract from the OMG RUSSIA probe. As evidence mounts, their best hope is to make this all about Trump. If nothing else, it will make a hung jury at trial all but inevitable.

They kicked it up a notch in this latest letter, flatly accusing the administration of playing games to conceal their own wrongdoing in regards to Russian collusion.

“The obvious — and at times explicitly stated — goal of this Committee is to discredit and otherwise damage witnesses to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, all as part of an effort to protect a President who has sought to placate and curry favor with a hostile foreign power and who demands that the Justice Department stop investigating him,” they wrote.

It’s as if they and CNN have the same show writers.

The lawyers accused the panels’ Republicans of seeking to “ruin the reputations of some of the government’s most dedicated and experienced civil servants,” in an attempt to “weaken the independence of this Justice Department.”

The letter went out of its way to defend washed up Trump-hating British spy Christopher Steele, author of the dossier, as well as the FBI go-between he used to feed the bureau dossier info, Bruce Ohr.

The letter said that going after these officials has “deprived our country of their able assistance in the increasingly urgent fight against foreign interference with our democracy,” praising Steele and Ohr.

“For example, this Committee has sought to depict the relationship between Christopher Steele and Bruce Ohr — one of the UK’s top experts on Russia and one of the Justice Department’s leading experts on Russian organized crime — as somehow scandalous, when we should all want these two experts to share information in order to make us safer,” they wrote.

Quick reminder: Bruce Ohr continued to pass along info from Steele even after the bureau themselves had fired him for inappropriate leaks to the media, and the bureau knew full well he was doing it, proving that the firing itself was merely window dressing. And the dossier that was being relayed was propaganda paid for by the Clinton campaign and disseminated by what I imagine to have been hysterically laughing Russian intel officers. The FBI, Clinton campaign and members of the British intel apparatus all colluded with Russia against Trump in 2016. That’s not a conspiracy theory; that’s a fact.

But we can’t let pesky things like facts get in the way of a good narrative.

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For his part, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) was not amused.

“It is very telling when Glenn Simpson has talked to multiple reporters and multiple individuals at the Department of Justice over the last two years. When the day of reckoning is on the horizon, he chooses to lose his voice,” Meadows said.

“This Committee has repeatedly interviewed witnesses in secret, only to selectively leak from the interviews to disparage those witnesses and promulgate a patently false narrative,” the lawyers wrote in response.

The irony is almost too much to take.

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BIG PICTURE:

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Simpson isn’t talking because he knows the committee knows much more than it did previously and thus any congressional testimony will be laden with perjury traps.

Nellie Ohr is set to testify this week, but she may very well plead the 5th herself. I certainly would. You know what can’t plead the 5th, though? FISA documents and text messages from her husband Bruce.

We won’t need Simpson’s testimony in the end, because there are many more ways of getting to the truth.

Make it happen, PDT!

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HOLD UP KANYE, IMMA LET YOU FINISH

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Things got surreal today in the Oval Office, to put it mildly.

PDT hosted rap star Kanye West for a wild meeting that has pushed liberals right over the edge, meaning I’ve no choice but to have undying respect for Mr. West for the foreseeable future.

Kanye showed up in what has now become his signature look, dark clothes and bright red #MAGA cap, then set up camp across from the presidential work desk to give the president and the country a piece of his mind. In a good way, of course.

He then launched into a 10-minute, sometimes profane monologue who topics ranged from mental health, criminal justice reform, the 13th Amendment, improving life for blacks in inner cities, his relationship with Adidas and, last but not least a hydrogen-powered plane he calls the “I-plane” to replace Air Force One.

It was a hell of a day.

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“I’ll tell you what. That was pretty impressive, huh?” Trump said after West concluded, prompting laughter from others in the room. “That was quite something.”

West acknowledged that the president might be surprised by his outspoken support.

“Trump is on his hero’s journey right now. He might not have thought he’d have a crazy motherf—-r like Kanye running up support,” he said.

Dude, come on. You can make your point with shouting “mf’er” in the Oval Office.

There was some real bright spots in the rant, though. West credited PDT with stopping a possible war with Rocket Man and described the president as something of a father figure to him, saying that growing up with his mother and father separated meant “there was not a lot of male energy in my home.”

In a heartwarming moment, West got out of his chair near the end of his remarks and gave Trump a side-hug. “I love this guy,” he said.

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Impressively, West also addressed the blowback he’s received in the entertainment industry for being a hardcore Trump supporter, letting everyone know that he doesn’t care about the haters and will not be backing down anytime soon.

“I have the balls to put on this hat,” West declared bluntly.

The absolute best part of today’s summit, though, was the series of truth bombs Kanye dropped in between the noise; truth bombs that liberals will do everything in their power to avoid dealing with head on.

When asked about his comments following Hurricane Katrina in which he declared that President Bush “doesn’t care about black people, “West was remarkably candid, telling reporters that he was immersed in a victim mentality at the time, a mindset he accurately pointed out as being the product of years of conditioning by the Dim party.

Ooooooooohhh, looks like they’ve got a plantation escapee. The Dim powers that be are about to send the bloodhounds.

He also touched on a theme that Dims really don’t want to tackle, which is the effect the welfare state has had on the black family. Prior to the LBJ’s “Great Society,” the vast majority of black homes had fathers. Following the creation of the welfare state, over 70% of black children are raised in single parent homes or by grandparents. Single parenthood is the worst hand that can be dealt to kids regardless of race, as every metric by which we gauge standard of living is effected. Graduation rates, incarceration rates, literacy rates, income level, every single thing you can think of. Good on Kanye for identifying the actual cause of most problems within the black community.

I’ve never been a Kanye fan, but I was impressed today by his candor.

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Trump and West didn’t see eye-to-eye on every issue, however. When a reporter asked about Trump’s support for controversial “stop-and-frisk” policing tactics, West responded they would discuss it but said to PDT, “I didn’t mean to put you on blast like that, bro.”

“I’m open-minded here,” Trump responded.

That seemed to be the extent of their disagreement, though, if one can even call it that, since PDT promised to revisit the issue with an open mind.

Former NFL star Jim Brown was also in attendance. Brown has been outspoken about civil rights issues for decades and has been a Trump supporter for almost as long. Brown, 82, spoke only briefly, saying it felt “good” to be in the Oval Office and that he looked forward to discussing their agenda.

He told PDT that he was there “to serve,” rather than “to ask for something.”

Now that is refreshing.

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BIG PICTURE:

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Kanye is most certainly a…..free spirit. Yeah, we’ll go with that.

But while some of his more outlandish statements may grab headlines, it’s the truth he’s telling about the Democrat party that makes him so dangerous.

If I might remind everyone, the GOP doesn’t need to get a majority of black votes. They don’t even need a big chunk. If Republicans can reel in upwards of 15% of the black vote, the Dims are in a world of hurt.

Currently, the most reliable data has the GOP fluctuating between 10 and 15% support within the black community, meaning Dims are in the danger zone. They’re going to have to nip these plantation escapes in the bud or all the enthusiastic sky-screamers in the world won’t be able to save them on election day.

Every new #woke black voter represents an existential threat to the Dim party, especially one with millions of non-white fans.

Keep telling the truth, Kanye. They can stomp, pout and call you every name in the book — except “wrong.”

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NOW FOR THE OTHER ROCK STARS

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The star-studded day at the White House didn’t end with Kanye.

Kid Rock, John Rich, the guy from the Doobie Brothers and others were on hand to see PDT sign the Music Modernization Act, which enjoyed unanimous support from both Congress and the music industry.

The MMA was driven by the need to update and streamline music licensing processes for the streaming era, where more and more musicians are finding it difficult to collect the royalties owed to them from streams on Spotify and other platforms. It has become the most significant copyright law change in decades.

The Obama administration promised to do it, PDT actually did. But that’s a common theme these days.

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The bill accomplishes three main tasks:

It streamlines the process by which music rights holders can be paid for their songs being played on streaming services.

It includes a song’s producers in payment for when songs are played over satellite and online radio, the first time producers have ever been mentioned in a bill of this sort.

It allows for payment of royalties for songs written before 1972, to both songwriters and performers.

The industry has been grappling with the so-called “black box” problem around music streaming services for several years, in which artists could struggle to be paid adequately for streams of their songs on Spotify, especially, thanks to the service’s problems with music rights management.

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BIG PICTURE:

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The streaming era has made it really hard for musicians to make a living off of their work. This bill helps to solve that.

Can’t fault folks for wanting to be paid for their work. People will get it free if they can, no matter how low the cost.

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ANOTHER BILL SIGNED

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The presidential pen put in some serious work today, not only signing bills into law but showing everyone that there may be more bipartisanship in DC than we’d suspected.

PDT added his signature to the “Save Our Seas Act” today, green-lighting an initiative to clean up eight friggin million tons of debris from the ocean.

“As president I will continue to do everything I can to stop other nations from making our oceans into their landfills. That’s why I’m pleased – very pleased, I must say – to put my signature on this important legislation,” PDT said as he signed the Save Our Seas Act into law at the Oval Office.

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Sponsored by Alaska Republican Sen. Dan “Please don’t confuse me for Lisa Murkowski” Sullivan, the bill aims to promote better domestic and international efforts at cleaning up garbage that is littered throughout the oceans. The new law will extend the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program for another five years, and promote cohesion among different federal agencies on how to reduce marine debris.

Once again, the bill has received widespread bi-partisan support, passing both the House and Senate unanimously. Don’t tell the #Resistance.

“Every year, over 8 million tons of garbage is dumped into our beautiful oceans by many countries of the world. That includes China, that includes Japan, that includes many, many countries,” PDT explained. “This waste, trash and debris harms not only marine life, but also fisherman, coastal economies along America’s vast stretches. The bad news is it floats toward us.”

This has been an issue for a while, both domestically and on the international stage. National Geographic reported only three years ago that 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic is in the world’s waters, with 269,000 tons of it floating on the surface and around four billion plastic microfibers per square kilometer sitting deeper in the ocean.

PDT called out previous administrations for doing “absolutely nothing” to address the problem of foreign governments dumping their waste into the ocean and it landing on American shores — leaving it up to the U.S. to clean up and pay. PDT went on to say that the White House has notified other governments “very strongly” of the changes to come.

Go get ’em, PDT. We shouldn’t be paying for other countries’ litter.

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MCCABE VS ROSENSTEIN

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We’ve learned over the last several weeks about heated exchanges between Fraud Rosenstein and Deep State McCabe immediately following the firing of Leakin’ James Comey, mostly having to do with secret wires and the 25th Amendment. It turns out that wasn’t the only point of contention.

After Comey was fired in May 2017, Rosenstein and McCabe reportedly went at it regarding who should recuse themselves from the PutinGate probe in front of King Bob Mueller himself. Both men were convinced that the other was damaged by the events that had transpired and should step aside from the Russia investigation.

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In the meeting with Mueller shortly after he was appointed special counsel to lead the Russia probe, Rosenstein pointed to the fact that years before, McCabe wore a campaign T-shirt in a family picture supporting his wife Jill’s bid for state senate. You might also recall that Jill’s campaign also received over half a million dollars from one Terry McAuliffe, longtime money bag man for the Clintons. At the time, McAuliffe was under FBI investigation for laundering dirty money from China on behalf of the Clintons and McCabe was positioned to oversee an upcoming probe into Hillary’s private server.

Other than that, everything was on the level.

In turn, McCabe, who became the acting FBI director after Comey was ousted, was particularly disturbed by the circumstances surrounding Comey’s firing and Rosenstein’s role in it (Rosenstein drafted the memo used to fire Comey, citing a BS excuse about Comey’s press conference on Hillary). According to today’s reports, McCabe aggressively pushed Rosenstein to recuse in the days that followed.

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Apparently, there was significant mistrust on both sides while tensions were high in May 2017, and sources suggest this suspicion colored the conversations that are now documented in contemporaneous notes McCabe handed over to Mueller.

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So McCabe took notes on Rosenstein and handed them over to Mueller like some overgrown snitch. Interesting. Maybe Rosenstein isn’t so bad after all.

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The DOJ Inspector General ultimately concluded that McCabe was not obligated to recuse himself from the FBI’s investigation into how Hillary’s private server (because of course they did), but has not addressed whether McCabe should have recused himself from Russia-related matters.

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Rosenstein, of course, should have at least recused himself from the IG probe into FISA abuse, as he was the guy who signed the last FISA application into Carter Page despite its reliance on Clinton campaign propaganda as supporting evidence. How can a guy be both a key subject in an investigation and the guy who ultimately signs off on it? Today’s DOJ surely found a way, as expected. Rosenstein has continued to oversee Mueller’s investigation after consulting with a career ethics adviser at the Justice Department about his ability to oversee the Russia probe, as if that removes his conflicts of interest.

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What a farce.

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The Rosenstein/McCabe feud has become every more interesting over the last several days, as top FBI lawyer James Baker testified before Congress that he understood Rosenstein to be serious when making his remarks about wiretapping the POTUS to invoke the 25th Amendment.

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Baker, however, was not present for that discussion and had been operating on information he received from McCabe and FBI home wrecker Lisa Page, who has credibility issues of her own. Rosenstein adamantly denies any serious discussion of wearing a wire. As of now, it’s a he said/ he said between Rosenstein and McCabe and the latter’s credibility has taken a serious hit over the past year.

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Rosenstein hasn’t helped his case recently, though, as he has refused to appear on Capitol Hill this week to answer questions about the infamous 25th Amendment conversation. Then again, he doesn’t appear to need to make his case, seeing as how he has the full support of the president, at least for now.

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But while Rosenstein may enjoy the confidence of the POTUS, House Republicans are another story.

“It is disappointing Rod Rosenstein will not be answering questions before Congress tomorrow—to put it mildly,” said Mark Meadows. “The Deputy Attorney General owes the American people answers about whether he participated in any conversations or decisions seeking to undermine President Trump’s administration from within. There is reason to be deeply concerned he did.” Meadows added, “Failure to compel testimony on these questions would amount to a dereliction of duty on the part of Congress.”

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Agreed.

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Pushing the meeting until after the midterms would be helpful to Rosenstein, who otherwise would be forced into an awkward position of having to re-litigate the context of his remarks after a détente with the PDT earlier this week. House Freedom Caucus leaders have been pressing for a transcribed interview with Rosenstein, not just a meeting with him to explain his comments.

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Rep. Matt Gaetz tweeted yesterday that he had flown from Florida to Washington to speak to Rosenstein before learning it had been postponed.

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“Chairman Goodlatte has been playing ‘hide and seek’ with some of us on the interview scheduling for several weeks now,” Gaetz tweeted. “You’d think after the former FBI top lawyer said the current Deputy Attorney General was serious about overthrowing the President that we might issue a subpoena … hold a hearing … conduct oversight … actually do our job. That would be a refreshing change for Congress.”

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BIG PICTURE:

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The rats who had been fighting behind the scenes are now doing so in public. McCabe, Page and the Strzok crew seem to be hellbent in taking down Rosenstein, which is odd since from all appearances, Fraud seemed to be on their side. But that’s the thing about appearances, they don’t necessarily equate to knowledge.

PDT got Rosenstein aboard Air Force One and apparently got the answers he wanted, as Fraud is now under the protection of the presidential seal. That kind of support allows one to blow off congressional testimony.

The question is, does PDT truly trust Rosenstein, or is he playing a long, strategic game designed to give every person involved with this scandal enough rope to hang themselves?

What I do know is that when high-ranking DOJ/FBI officials are giving conflicting accounts to serious charges, it means the bad guys are no longer on the same sheet of music, if they ever were. That means someone is going to be determined a liar, and I have a hard time believing PDT is apathetic to learning who that is.

Then again, something tells me he already has a pretty good idea.

Now it’s just a matter of when we get to find out.

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